APHORISMS 



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Aphorisms for Teachers of EngHsh 
Composition and The Class Hour 
in English Composition 



F. N. SCOTT and J. V. DENNEY 

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COPYRIGHT, IQ05, BY 

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Aphorisms for Teachers of EngHsh 
Composition 



THE TOUCHSTONE 

The test of all good teaching is growth of pupils' 
characters. This is as true of composition as of any 
other subject in the curriculum. Perhaps it is more 
true of composition than of some other subjects. 
The very words that we use in talking of composition 
work have a meaning in terms of character. What 
is "unity" but a special application of integrity? 
What is "accuracy" but truth-telling? What is 
"method" but law and order? What is "selection" 
but wisdom and judgment, restraint and temperance ? 
These and other terms of our work are "rich in 
second intention." They need not our preaching 
and enforcement. If we do our work they will do 
theirs. 

The practice ot composition, when it is well 
taught, arouses in the pupil feelings of health, power. 



4 Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 

sanity and hope — the invariable attendants of mental 
growth. Badly taught it arrests development, and 
the result is a feeling of abnormality, a feeling of 
exhaustion, a feeling of powerlessness and failure. 

What is the reward of the teacher of composi- 
tion ? It is the knowledge that from his teaching 
men and women have gained power — power to strike 
hard blows for truth, good government and right 
living. 

Few things are more fascinating to a teacher than 
to watch in his pupils a growing sense for the power 
and beauty of the mother tongue. 

To the teacher of English composition, preemin- 
ently among teachers, is given the opportunity to 
develop the constructive tendency in the young, the 
desire to produce something interesting and attractive, 
something orderly and sound in structure. Composi- 
tion work is almost the only school work that requires 
more than facility in reproducing what has been 
learned in the text-books. Its rules of construction 
are the rules of all the arts and crafts. In leading 
pupils, through practice, to appreciate the meaning of 
these rules the teacher of composition is developing 
the art instinct in the young. 



Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 



FORM AND SUBSTANCE 

Whatever may be true of other races, we of the 
Anglo-Saxon breed have a deep-seated conviction that 
form is the outgrowth of substance, structure the 
outgrowth of function, — in fine, that what we show 
is just the hvely countenance of what we do and are. 
The national consciousness ultimately rejects as 
hollow, useless and invalid every kind of form — in 
language as well as in ethics, in religion as well as in 
politics — which is not felt to be the outward aspect of 
some vital, enduring force. 

The way to make the externals of composition 
interesting is to connect them with the internals. Let 
the large and ultimate ends of language shine through 
and transfigure the minutest elements. What do we 
teach these small things for if it is not to show the 
great things they can do ? There is a way of teach- 
ing the very alphabet to the glory of God. 

LIVING TO TEACH 

The good teacher of English composition will so 
live as to furnish himself with inexhaustible resources 
for the assignment of subjects. He will be on the 



6 Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 

alert for suggestions. Every day he will converse 
with some one about literature, about politics, about 
science, about art; so that he will at any recitation 
be prepared to say, " I have just been talking with a 
friend about such and such a matter. I think I 
understand it in a way, but I am not entirely clear. 
I want you to help me understand it better." 

No one can teach English composition well who 
has not lived broadly and deeply, touching life at 
many points. 

The teacher of composition, like the teacher of 
any other subject, should have resources far beyond > 
his present need. The mere possession of such 
resources gives him courage, poise and self-respect. 

To borrow Matthew Arnold's phrase, openness 
of mind and sensitiveness of intelligence are prime * 
requisites for a teacher of composition. Tolerance, 
patience, energy, enthusiasm, a good voice showing a 
happy disposition, a warm heart and a capacity for » 
humor, — these are admirable in the teacher of English; 
and if we may have also a sufficiency of scholarship, 
we lack nothing. If we must sacrifice, it shall 
be the last item ; for if scholarship is desirable the ^ 
other qualities are indispensable. 



Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 



OF SYMPATHY 

The English teacher's best asset is sympathy, A 
genuine interest in all that the pupil is interested in, 
a sincere desire to hear what he has to say, to read 
what he has to write, — this is the great secret of 
success in teaching. 

My preaching will not improve my pupil's bad 
habits; my enthusiasm for what is commendable in 
his writing will start him on the road to self-improve- 
ment in all points. 

There is no more powerful stimulus to good 
composition than the feeling that some one sympa- 
thizes and comprehends and wants to hear. How 
the feeling is aroused makes little difiference. It may 
be no more than the teacher's chance word of 
encouragement dropped half unthinkingly. It may 
be but a look, a gesture, a kindly inflection of the 
voice. Whatever it is, it is enough if it tells the 
pupil that at least one person in the world is eager 
to listen. No young person — no old one, either 
— can resist that sweet solicitation. It is worth 
all the goads in the hands of all the drill masters that 
ever were. 



8 Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 

If one recalls the leaden words in which teachers 
sometimes assign composition tasks to young and 
impressionable pupils, of the listless, hopeless air with 
which the pupils go about the work, of the relief ap- 
parent on every face when the disagreeable job is done 
with, need he wonder why so much of composition 
teaching is barren of results ? The teacher of English 
composition needs to pray daily to be delivered from 
the sin of indifiference. The human remedy for 
indifference to any work is a deeper knowledge of 
that work or study, and of those who participate in 
it. This implies for the teacher of English not only 
a deeper knowledge of the laws of composition, but 
also a deeper knowledge of the capacity, tastes, and 
interests of the individual pupils. Psychology at 
large is interesting; but the psychology of young 
Tommy Smith, as discovered in his themes, is much 
more interesting. 

Every interest which pupils can have, the teacher 
of composition must have also. He must be able to 
say truthfully: Nothing in student humanity do 1 
consider foreign to myself. 

There will be no lack of interest in composition 
work if the teacher is really acquainted with his pupils 
and sympathizes with their leading interests. Primary 



Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 9 

teachers seem to understand this better than the rest 
of us. There would be no trouble about topics for 
composition, for instance, if we had sufficient knowl- 
edge of our pupils. With such knowledge we should 
be able so to state and condition any subject-matter, 
and so to present it in assigning it, that curiosity 
would be aroused and writing would be eagerly 
undertaken. 



Imagine a mother saying to her sick child, " What 
a nuisance you are ! The idea of your falling ill when 
1 am so busy with other things. It is just your 
natural meanness. Here, take this medicine and get 
well as quick as you can. I can't afford to waste 
much time on you." We should know what to 
think of such a mother. But how much better is a 
teacher of English who talks to a badly trained child 
in such away as this? "What do you mean by 
spelling and punctuating in this ridiculous fashion ? 
Where were you brought up ? You write like a 
savage. How do you suppose I can take time to 
mark such papers as these?" Somebody once 
remarked that what the teacher of English composi- 
tion most needs is a "philosophy of adolescence." 
The remark was laughed at, but is it not true for the 
kind of teacher quoted above ? 



lo Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 

Some books on rhetoric are written in an intol- 
erant, hectoring tone, as if the writer were saying to 
the pupil: "You miserable little wretch! Don't 
you know that you are a child of Satan ? If you are 
saved at all it will be through my intercession." 
Probably one reason why many a boy who wrote well 
in the grammar school writes poorly in the high 
school is that his rhetoric book has suddenly convicted 
him of too many sins, and he has come to believe 
himself beyond hope of salvation. 



OF ORIGINALITY 

If the pupil can forget that such a thing as 
originality exists, perhaps his writing will be original. 

The teacher's " Write naturally, be as spontaneous 
as you can," is about as ef!fective, and effective in 
about the same way, as the photographer's "Now 
smile, please." 

Never say to pupils, " Now, I want you to write 
something wholly original." So shape your teaching 
that all the originality the pupils have will rush to 
their fingers' ends. Never say to them, "I want you 
to be interested in this subject." Interest them. 



Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition ii 



OF WASTEFULNESS IN TEACHING 

Few processes of manufacture are so wasteful as 
the teaching of English — as it is commonly taught. 
A manufacturer of any other staple article who 
wasted half as much of his raw material as do some 
of our teachers of English, would be ruined in a 
twelvemonth. 

Nothing in composition teaching is quite so 
expensive as scolding 

THE DISMAL SCIENCE 

"When we are plodding through the weary and 
dreary details of grammar and rhetoric," says one of 
the leaders in education. Ill-omened words! Let us 
say, rather, "When with a sense of growing power 
we are marching triumphantly up the steep paths of 
grammar and rhetoric." 

Some people seem to think that any attempt to 
make rhetoric and composition interesting is flying in 
the face of Providence and common sense. 

Some teachers regret that so indispensable a subject 
as English composition should be so disagreeable: 



12 Aphorisms for Teachers of Efiglish Composition 

Others have a grim satisfaction in the thought that 
so disagreeable a subject has proved to be so indis- 
pensable. 

OF THE FASCINATION OF SPEECH 

His native speech is to the normal child one of 
the most fascinating of all his interests. It is an 
early subject of curiosity. To acquire it is his first 
ambition. He never wearies of practicing it, and it 
is a perennial source of interest, amusement and 
joy. Only repression and discouragement and wrong- 
headed teaching can chill his desire to obtain a 
mastery of it. 

Composition is no exceptional, spasmodic act 
confined to festivals and solemn days, or performed 
only at the point of the bayonet. It is a natural 
function going on incessantly in all normally con- 
stituted minds. 

The child begins to compose as soon as he begins 
to speak. 

The satisfaction which comes from the discovery 
of a growing power over the magic of words is one of 
the healthiest and most genuine of pleasures. Would 



Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 13 

that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in 
me," expresses the aspiration of all young and growing 
minds. 

TEACHING BY THE YARD 

It is a pitiful ambition in a teacher to want to 
get over so many pages of a text-book in a week or a 
month. 

OF CORRECTION 

Of what use is it to say to a pupil, "You ought 
to have more sense than to use such English," or 
"You write like a child in the fourth grade," or 
"This essay of yours is the stupidest thing I ever 
read" ? Probably very little. But it is of much use 
to say to him, "If you will do such and such things, 
your writings will improve." 

When a teacher puts down a pupil's composition 
and exclaims, " That sounds just like Jane," or 
'That's John all over," the composition must be 
good. Words may be misspelled ; verbs here and 
there, may be on bad terms with their subjects; but 
no matter, the composition must be good. It will 
be better when Jane or John is better. 



14 Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 

The main question which the corrector of themes 
should put to himself is not, How many errors can I 
find in this theme ? but, How can I help the writer to 
improve ? The whole class should be enlisted in this 
effort as they listen to the teacher's rapid reading of 
impromptu themes immediately after the writing. 
Let the class participate in the correction ; let them 
commend ; let them disapprove ; but let them always 
understand that the sole object is to help the unknown 
writer to a better expression of the idea which he 
would communicate. When teacher and class are 
in this attitude, reproof is robbed of its sting, and 
criticism is eagerly sought. 

" Theme correcting? I hate it like sin ! " This 
was the exclamation of a teacher of English composi- 
tion. And the hearer asked himself, musingly, "At 
what point, in an ideal scheme of pedagogics, would 
it be proper to introduce educational procedures that 
the teacher hates like sin ? " 

Who has not heard teachers of English composi- 
tion make, in all sincerity, such comparisons as the 
following? — Correcting themes is like sawing wood 
with a rusty saw, like turning a heavy grindstone, 
like riding a bicycle in a strong head-wind, like carry- 
ing a hod of brick up an endless ladder on a broiling 
hot day. 



Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 15 

Theme reading ceases to be a bore when we begin 
to look for signs of a growing taste and personal charac- 
teristic in the theme. It becomes at times a pleasure 
as we study the boy through his successive themes. 

It takes long experience, superadded to a fine 
intuition, to distinguish between muddle-headedness 
and genius, between eccentricity and original power. 
Better go slow. 

SELF AND THE OTHER SELF 

When a pupil has learned to express himself, he 
has learned just half of the art of composition. When 
he has learned to communicate himself to his fellow 
beings, he has learned the other half. 

To force a pupil to write with formal correctness 
when all the time he feels that his readers would 
prefer an off-hand, careless, helter-skelter sort of 
composition, is to fight against the stars in their 
courses. Better find for him a different class of 
readers. 

UNIDEA'D CHILDREN 

There is no more pestilent heresy than the notion 
that children are deficient in ideas for composition 



i6 Aphorisms for Teachers of E/is^lish Composition 

work. Their minds swarm with ideas, and in a 
normal condition children will express themselves 
almost incessantly. True, they say childish things, 
but would you have them talk like a book ? Healthy 
expression means the expression, in orderly form, of 
such ideas as they have — big ideas in big folk, little 
ideas in little folk. 

BELATED 

I once heard a teacher of rhetoric in a normal 
school spend half an hour in discussing the question 
whether a given specimen of synecdoche expressed 
an internal or an external relation. That teacher 
was born six or seven centuries too late. He should 
have lived in the age of St. Thomas Aquinas. 



COMPOSITION AS A BY-PRODUCT 

It is one thing to say that every recitation should 
be a recitation in English. It is another thing to say 
that these quasi-recitations in English will develop 
symmetrically the pupil's powers of expression. 

Let us admit the value of models and the value of 
reading. But let us never admit that an art can be 
learned without practice. 



Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 17 

Leave English composition without a teacher; 
leave it to be cared for incidentally by the teachers of 
the other subjects, and you practically abolish the 
subject. 

BAD MARKSMANSHIP 

Teachers of English who are recent graduates of 
a University often bring reproach upon themselves by 
transferring bodily to the secondary school the methods 
and aims of higher education. For the correction of 
this egregious over-shooting of the mark there is 
needed only a little common sense. Depress the 
muzzle. 

THE CLASS HOUR IN ENGLISH 
COMPOSITION 

Composition work, can not be put on a recitation 
basis. Any effort to make it resemble recitations in 
other subjects betrays a misconception of its nature 
and purpose and is doomed to failure. Like instruc- 
tion in drawing, instruction in composition is properly 
subsidiary and subordinate to the practice of the art. 
It is the ability to write and to speak that the teacher 
of composition seeks to encourage. In the tradi- 
tional recitation in other school subjects the pupil 



1 8 Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 

who can reproduce what he has learned from books 
will get along nicely ; in composing even a small essay, 
however, he is put into a very different attitude 
towards his work. It is now his business to interest, 
instruct, or entertain his teacher and classmates, and 
he feels that the duty of the hour imposes a need of 
exercising observation and inventiveness. This change 
in attitude towards the work is recognized by every 
class that has acquired the right spirit and by good 
teachers of composition everywhere. 

The character of composition as an art determines 
class-room method in this subject. Go into a class 
in drawing and you find that three-fourths of the time 
the class are drawing; the other fourth is devoted to 
giving necessary directions, to arousing interest, to 
studying models, to calling attention to principles, 
to personal help and criticism. We do not look for a 
brilliant recitation in drawing. We should not look 
for a brilliant recitation in composition. As in the 
drawing class, so in the composition class, the impor- 
tant thing is to get the pupils at work trying to 
express themselves. We should expect in the class- 
hour usually to find the class engaged in the practice 
of the art. Younger classes should usually not be 
required to write their compositions at home, and 
indeed with older classes it is best to have much of 



Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 19 

the writing done in class. The outside preparation 
should be prescribed observation, note taking, 
— everything, in fact, that is needful in order that 
vs^riting may begin. For this preliminary observation, 
or reading and note-taking, definite directions are 
necessary, indicating what the observer is to look for 
and what he may expect to find. In the class, before 
writing begins, it may be often profitable to let each 
one tell what he has found out concerning the matter 
in hand, in order that the total resources of the class 
may be made available for use by all. Without very 
much comment by the teacher these oral compositions 
will teach the value of clear seeing and truthful report- 
ing. These two virtues, rightly understood, compre- 
hend all that can be said on the subject of composition. 
Of course, pupils should be allowed to take home 
for revision and completion compositions begun in 
the class. 

Practice at each class hour should have a sharply- 
defined object, that the pupil may learn, whenever 
he writes, to write with a purpose in mind. The 
purpose itself will impose artistic limitations upon the 
writer if he keeps it in mind. Both teacher and 
pupil should know beforehand what the purpose is, 
and the material supplied by the oral reports should 
be sifted in view of the purpose, before writing begins. 



20 Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 

Suppose the purpose to be purely practical — to teach 
the class how to write a For Rent notice from given 
data; or how to write most economically a telegram 
communicating certain facts; or how to order a book 
from a publisher so as to bring the right edition ; or 
how to describe a lost article for identification ; or 
how to explain a point in grammar; or how to make 
a recitation in history, or some other school subject ; 
or how to plan an argument so as to avoid confusion 
in a certain coming debate. In every one of these 
we have a purpose which prescribes what to say and 
what not to say, and what order to adopt in saying 
it. Though we are thinking all the time of the 
purpose and of the subject matter, we are also raising 
questions of art and are teaching the laws and 
principles of art, — unity, selection, proportion, variety, 
method and the rest. These questions are more 
easily answered when a particular reader is named 
beforehand. 

Thus far, nothing has been said about the direct 
teaching of the mechanical parts of composition. 
Some of these are best taught through a study 
of models, and on such an exercise the class pro- 
cedure more nearly resembles the ordinary recitation 
in other subjects. Some are best taught in the 
correction and revision of the pupil's work. Many 



Aphorism! for Teachers of English Composition 21 

problems requiring comparison and contrast may be 
devised in order to teach punctuation, capitals, 
spelling, and the simpler procedures of rhetoric. 
Points in grammar are easily managed when two ways 
of saying the same thing are presented and the prob- 
lem to be decided is which way is better in a given 
recitation or a given context. Memorizing brief 
selections of prose or verse often fixes an idiom, or an 
important sentence-form, or a convenient word-order. 
A list of the more important words of connection 
may be kept on the blackboard. 

Still we must depend, in the main, upon individual 
correction and conference, gradually to weed out 
error. Sometimes an entire set of papers should be 
corrected for but one kind of error. No teacher 
should make himself believe that his chief business 
in life is to hunt every error out of its hiding place. 
That is the wrong attitude towards this work. No 
teacher should become a slave in correcting papers. 
A good teacher will always want to see what his 
pupils can do in writing and will never be without a 
set of papers; but when the papers become too 
burdensome, that is the time to introduce oral com- 
position. We have hitherto underestimated the value 
of oral composition, and should give it a larger place 
in our work. Let all the preparation be made for 



22 Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 

fe .^_^^_ 

writing a composition. Let there be the observation, 
the questions, the conversation as usual, — everything 
but the writing. Then from a common outh'ne 
prepared in class let the pupils speak in turn. 

Time should not be grudged for the reading of 
models to the class, especially if the teacher can read 
well. The ballads, old and modern, are exceptionally 
good for cultivating a liking for strong, native vocab- 
ulary. Their homely phrases, once heard, stick in the 
memory, and they stimulate to original story telling. 
One of the chief uses of models as an aid to composi- 
tion is in teaching structural unity. It is a pleasure 
to take a class with you through a narrative poem or 
an essay or a prose story, and as the reading proceeds, 
have them mark the successive steps, find the climax, 
and note how the leading details count towards a 
general effect. But all of these — models, memorizing, 
analysis, — are mere helps to composition rather than 
the thing itself. 

For the thing we are eager for all of the time is to 
promote the power to communicate ideas effectively. 
Publication of some sort will help on the desire for 
this power on the part of the pupil. The school 
paper and the literary society afford some opportunity 
for publication, but the chief agency of publication 



Aphorisms for Teachers of English Composition 23 

must be the teacher, who should not hesitate to take 
time to read from each set of compositions to the 
class, parts of several essays that have proved inter- 
esting to him. This practice vi^ill insure greater 
attention to form, mechanical details, diction, and 
grammar, and will lead to a greater desire to interest 
and please. Publication compels courtesy and atten- 
tion to details. It discourages carelessness. It 
arouses the right ambition. 

The class hour should be occupied more than half 
the time in writing or in oral composition ; often in 
the rapid reading of models for the study of structure ; 
sometimes in exercises that aim to correct general 
faults of detail; and often as the place for publication. 
So used, the composition-hour can not fail to become 
a favorite hour with the great majority of our pupils. 



MAR S7 19C5 



THE SCOTT AND DENNEY 
SERIES OF ENGLISH BOOKS 



ELEMENTARY ENGLISH COMPOSITION. 

i2mo, cloth, 249 pages. Price, 80 cents. 

COMPOSITION -LITERATURE. i2mo, cloth, 
397 pages. Price, $1.00. 

COMPOSITION - RHETORIC. lamo, cloth, 416 
pages. Price, fi.oo. 

PARAGRAPH -WRITING. lamo, cloth, 304 
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